


Red Shift ~ Into Legendra's Shadow

by The_Exile



Series: Red Rings of Saturn [3]
Category: Dragon Force (Video Game)
Genre: Community: smallfandombang, Headcanon, Inspired by Music, Multi, Mutual Pining, Outer Space, Post-Game(s), Robots, Small Fandom Big Bang, Soul Bond, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23577502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/pseuds/The_Exile
Summary: A few years after Reinhart's victory over all of Legendra, the Emperor-mage asks Bardal and Vlad to investigate a magical energy signature in the abandoned Shadow Tower. Mistakenly thinking he is summoning Frest and Ramda, the two bards accidentally summon Lokithus, the mysterious third aspect of Madruk. Lokithus persuades them to free him and they are drawn into the world of celestial battles, visiting the realms outside of Legendra and finding out where the Katmando robot was stored. In a world not meant for mortals, only the power of their love for one another and their passion for music can save the souls of Bardal and Presto.
Relationships: Bardal/Presto (Dragon Force), Ramda/Frest (Dragon Force), Reinhart/Uryll (Dragon Force), Sierra/Vlad (Dragon Force)
Series: Red Rings of Saturn [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635517
Collections: Small Fandoms Bang Round Nine





	1. The Shadow Tower

**Author's Note:**

> art by noxelementalist - https://archiveofourown.org/works/23578102

Bardal's rich, melodic singing voice echoed through the lofty chambers of the abandoned tower, bringing to life a heartfelt rendition of the Palemoon national anthem. He was working for Tradnor's rising Emperor at the moment, a fire-hearted young man who would not have seen the funny side of any implied disloyalty, but he had never found their national anthem inspiring and he was alone except for his lifelong partner who would never betray him for his little eccentricities. The magical bard's serenade was accompanied only by the eerily howling wind, the occasional variably-pitched hum of his companion Presto's arcane scanning tools, an answering hum that was a worryingly intense bass rumble in the ground, and the deathly, ominous silence. They had disturbed a roost of bats up in the rafters, who had flown right into Bardal, pitching him on his ass with a rather undignified squeal and almost ruining his perfectly styled, silky waves of lilac hair. After that incident, they'd seen and heard nothing, even when they'd entered the inner sanctum at the center of the tower, a circular room whose walls curved up to the ceiling, letting in a pale light from a strip of stained glass frescoes depicting scaled, winged, fanged beasts with a demonic look to them, mostly in various shades of blue. The patterns scattered across a mosaic stone floor inlaid with a summoning circle in the middle. Once, this circle had been the portal connecting a great ally of theirs, lost in the void, to the mundane world, with the help of his eternal companion. Bardal was still in the process of composing an epic ballad of the pure love and tragic sacrifices of Frest and Ramda. Right now, the circle was empty, its magic inactive apart from the source of that subterranean hum, the altars cleared of all except a token offering of devotional incense left there every day. On this overcast, miserable day, there wasn't enough sunlight to pierce the gloom of the tower and they'd relied on magically conjured floating lights, Presto's a cluster of dancing, spinning balls of every colour, perpetually juggled at impossible angles, Bardal's a pair of spotlights. There was no need for stealth - they weren't really expecting to find anything and so far they hadn't, not even anything bigger than a bat making its home in the abandoned tower. The place was unsettling, yes, but nothing untoward was actually happening. 

It had been Presto who suggested singing to keep up their spirits. Actually, he'd pointed out that, despite the place looking so dark and creepy and depressing, with the constant threat of whatever was underfoot doing whatever it did to people, the tower wouldn't be that bad with proper lighting and a repair job. The stained glass was magnificent, the acoustics would be perfect for a grand concert, there were lots of places they could install seating on different tiers. The atmosphere of the place would suit one of their magically enhanced concerts perfectly. If Reinhart didn't want the place for anything after all - and it really didn't look like there was anything interesting in it - maybe the Emperor-Mage would let the two of them have it to build a concert hall. They would get in a lot of revenue for Tradnor if it was officially sponsored - the two heroes of the Dragon Force Wars were already known far and wide across Legendra - and maybe people would stop complaining about the place's bad aura and blaming every little unfortunate or unnerving event on the tower if it was a lively centre of culture.

Provided they didn't actually find anything there. They'd been called upon especially, as high-ranking mages with nothing better to do (they had both strongly contested this point, rehearsing as they were for a performance in Fandaria next month), once the unusual magical emanations had been detected by Sophie's keen senses. Being the court wizard and highest magical authority in the land, she couldn't very well go traipsing off into haunted towers herself. Someone was supposed to go and change over the incense, renew the prayers to the deceased (probably) Ramda and Frest, so it might as well be a couple of mages with sharp enough senses and technical prowess sufficient to scan the place for abnormalities.

They'd found the ripples underground straight away. Shadowy in nature but not quite malicious, they'd not harmed anything yet or even swung any leylines off balance. A powerful wave of earth magic would normally be in danger of setting off an earthquake simply by shifting around so much of the earths power and redirecting magnetic currents. If anything, Presto would have said that the ripples were coming from a different source to elemental magic, another dimension only usually invoked during the most powerful of rituals. For instance, the spell could be tapping into a divine or demonic realm. It was a complete coincidence that the ripples were underground. Well, probably not that much of a coincidence. He'd asked the locals if there was anything down there, any caverns or mines, underground lakes or wyvern's burrows. Nobody had ever heard of such a thing existing. 

While it didn't seem all that threatening, Bardal still didn't think they should just leave it alone. High-powered dimensional magic could be even more catastrophic if it went out of control or was used maliciously. The only circumstances in which it just happened on its own were very bad news. If this was something to do with the Gods, it could put Reinhart in danger, as a scion of God of War himself, or make him a danger to others. Worse, it could be something to do with Madruk. Bardal didn't quite understand the situation around those two but he had heard that Ramda was somehow linked to Madruk and that the ritual to link Frest and Ramda had tapped into powers technically belonging to Madruk. The Dragon God of Destruction was now banished from this realm, hopefully for good. Without the threat from another God tipping the balance, the other deities had all returned to their own realms, to observe and allow the world to evolve as its natural laws bade it. Absolutely no possible intervention from higher realms was a good sign at this point in history, unless the proclamation that this was an Age of Peace with no need for Gods was itself a lie.

Well, Astea had never technically promised peace, only that it was almost certainly the fault of mortals if another war broke out and so we can bloody well fix it ourselves. Okay, so Astea probably said it in a more graceful, dignified way than that. Neither of them had been there at the time. It was the business of Dragon Warriors, their patron deities and closest friends and family. No matter how hard the two performers protested that they were meant to be chronicling Legendra's history, nobody told them the whole truth without them kicking up a fuss or sneaking in to find out for themselves.

Truth be told, their decision to deliberately go and poke whatever it was that rested down there, probably a very bad idea, was mostly motivated by their extreme disdain for the idea that, if they reported back right now, Reinhart would probably just declare the place off limits, giving out a vague warning that it was dangerous, then just disarm the circle and never say anything more about it.

Besides, what if it was Frest trying to get home?


	2. Lokithus Ponders

He still feels the pain in the deep scars that never quite healed properly. They left no physical mark - he didn't really have a physical body anyway, only a disposable shell crafted from raw matter and divine mandate - but a jagged, puckered line down the landscape of his psyche, like a crevice blasted into the land after a great war where some weapon had been unleashed that was so terrible that nothing would grow again in the bleak wasteland surrounding the rift. It was on the edge of his thoughts constantly, a dull pain that always felt wrong and stopped him fully concentrating. Like a phantom limb after a recent amputation, when he wasn't even sure how his body worked without the limb, except that it was part of his soul that was missing and it was even more complicated to work around the absence of something that had always been there, in sleep and waking. What's more, there was probably nobody left alive who understood such pain and loss. At least, he'd never met anyone else who had existed in quite the same way as himself and his 'brothers' had, not in Legendra, not even among other divine beings. His situation - his and Madruk's and Ramda's - had been unique, a necessary by-product of the extreme contradictions inherent in his nature, the necessity of repeated destruction of a world in order to preserve it by keeping it in balance, to keep a cycle flowing so that the well of souls would never stagnate. It didn't help that they had never quite followed their purpose to the exact letter, had never gone for a moment without doing something they weren't strictly supposed to, whether it was Ramda's obsession with making copies of information he should be wiping or Lokithus' own excursions into the void beyond the world they were meant to be keeping in balance, the things he brought back that weren't strictly safe to be introduced to what was supposed to be a finely tuned system. 

And now they were gone. Both his brothers, Madruk and Ramda. 

No, they'd been closer than brothers, more like the other parts of a whole, perfectly complementing each other. They weren't meant to exist apart, not without some kind of soul-link to each other. It was Madruk's increasing disconnection from his other aspects and roles that had led him to become truly malevolent, truly trying to destroy Legendra - in other words, insane. Lokithus supposed he was next. He'd always been considered a little odd by divine standards anyway. To another deity, the Universe outside Legendra (and the other countless worlds created by their little projects) didn't exist, or if it did, it was unformed chaos and the occasional coherent thing that sprung together at random, without any meaning to it, that would swiftly decay again, completely unobserved. Whenever Lokithus said he'd seen signs of coherent activity happening out there, he'd been treated as though he were delusional, or possibly plotting something. The others had never really trusted the Three-Headed Dragon, with his fragmented nature and his duty and permission to do things that were forbidden to the others. 

They weren't necessarily gone for good, he told himself, clutching an imaginary stump of a missing arm, gritting teeth against a headache in a body he'd only just created and was only a simple puppet of raw matter anyway. Madruk and Ramda were Gods. They existed in a higher form, above simple life and death. Most of the time they didn't have physical bodies to stop working and decay. Their souls were vast and ferociously burning with life. They often existed in multiple realms at once. The last time they were defeated in battle, Madruk and Ramda had only been banished, imprisoned in a specially constructed purgatory. Madruk's Apostles had managed to free him from his prison. Lokithus didn't know the whole story but someone he worked closely with, probably an enemy, had broken Ramda loose before convincing him to defect. 

Both had been defeated again, much more decisively, in the coming war. It didn't mean they were destroyed. Just impossible to contact. Silent. Missing from any realm Lokithus had ever been to.

Lokithus knew of many realms he hadn't been to yet, even how to get to a few of them. For instance, the place in which he'd found... that. The machine. Ramda had always been closest to it, understood it the best. It was as if his soul was the most compatible. Then Madruk had stolen it for his own malicious purposes when he went insane. The original Katmando unit had been destroyed but there had been others back there. He had a vague idea that they might have been linked to each other, at some point, before they were sent to sleep in that storage realm for a near-eternity. It was an ideal place to retreat to, if the other two wanted to escape somewhere far away where they could be themselves and still protect themselves from any pursuing, vengeful fellow Dragon Gods. It was what he'd have thought of first, anyway, and he hoped the others would have the intelligence to come up with the same idea.

If not, he could always just use one to support his shattered, failing life, hook himself up to a network of two others and use them as substitutes. It was rather pathetic but ultimately he might be able to grow stronger over time. For instance, if he found and linked together an army of these things, maybe even a commanding unit that was no doubt stronger. 

He saw the risks - for instance, if such a thing had a will of its own, it wouldn't in any way sympathetic to his attempt to usurp it - but he was running out of options. For one thing, he was already stuck in one of the realms he had been exploring. Actually, he'd been lost there ever since Madruk had gone insane and attacked his brothers. Knowing he wasn't strong enough to survive his larger brother in a straight fight, and that Ramda had the Katmando, Lokithus had automatically defaulted to fleeing down a random dimensional rabbit hole. He hadn't bothered to keep the portal stable or check that he had any way to work out where he was or find his way back. He only knew what was going on in Legendra, that always hotly contested world brimming with lives and souls of all different colours, because he could still sense his brothers' presences and communicate with them on a level that only they shared. 

And now they were gone. He was truly lost, truly alone.

Gods weren't supposed to pray, so he merely hoped very enthusiastically that he would find another Katmando before long. He didn't actually know that this was where Katmandos were stored - for all he knew, it could have been the opposite end of the Universe - but he'd also never managed to open a portal anywhere that wasn't close to them, so he'd always assumed he couldn't travel very far yet and that the Katmandos were somewhere nearby Legendra. 

At least he had all the time in the world to find out. Or at least until his soul essence bled out, at which point it wouldn't matter. 

There was a random tug on his supernatural senses. Despite his wild hope that sent his imaginary heart leaping, it wasn't either of his brothers. It was definitely a message, though - a summons, or even just an inquisitive scrying.

Having nothing better to do, he answered.


	3. The Summoning

"I don't think that's Frest," whispered Presto. 

Bardal stepped back from the summoning circle that they had painstakingly renovated with chalk and ritual chants. A peal of thunder caused him to flinch. Outside, the clouds had broken, releasing a sheet of rain that battered against the stone walls. Lightning flashed in the windows, sending jagged images through the stained glass. He didn't know if it was coincidence or not that the weather had chosen this moment to turn bad. The heat had been oppressively close, the sky turgid and grey all day. Legendra's weather was fickle, as if representing the many deities who had once fought for control over it - there were more types of climate and landscape than should rightly fit into one continent, according to Beykall and Ishtar's famous scientific studies. However, Bardal could have sworn the storm broke out as soon as the circle began glowing a faint ghostly blue, the underground hum now much louder than before, almost knocking him off his feet. He could hear a voice in the hum, see a face in the glow.

He'd assumed it was Frest or maybe Ramda, possibly even both. It didn't really look anything like them, though. If anything, the large muscular frame, the bronzed skin, the wild, shaggy grey hair and bushy eyebrows, the ferocious scowl, the aura of primal, dangerous power, reminded him of...

"Madruk!" yelled Bardal, mentally grasping hold of the flow of magic. He held his staff above his head, reaching for the elemental source of the raging storm so that he could throw lightning down on the encroaching enemy.

"Don't wreck the place! For Astea's sake, don't break a half-active summoning circle!" hissed Presto, "If it's really Madruk, what are we going to do on our own?"

"You... have a point," muttered Bardal. It had taken the efforts of the eight most powerful warrior-monarchs in the land, blessed by Astea with a source of power specifically designed to combat the God of Destruction, to take Madruk down, and they weren't even sure if he was gone for good   
\- especially not if he was about to burst through a summoning circle, "We should hurry and fetch Reinhart."

"It's too late if we've really summoned Madruk right here and now," yelled Presto, "And I'm not going back to Reinhart and admitting we did so!"

"It was kind of his idea..."

"He's the Emperor. Emperors don't listen if you tell them it was their idea all along," pointed out Presto, "We need to run as far away as possible. From the Apocalypse. Besides, I don't think that's Madruk, now I look at him."

Bardal looked around at the imposing figure that clawed its way out of the blue well of light that now flooded the summoning circle. It didn't quite look how he'd remembered Madruk from the brief sighting during that climactic final battle. He was slightly smaller, more wiry, his hair lighter, slightly less bushy and flowed longer down his back.

He was also wearing a traveling cloak, not just a loincloth, and underneath it, down at least half of his body, he was fused with machinery that Bardal had also seen once before. 

Madruk though this may not be, the second thing he recognised brought the same feeling of dread to his stomach.

* * *

Bardal snapped his fingers and the lightning bolt crackled down, arching through the weather vane on the roof and straight onto the circle. A shield of red light instantly flickered up around the target of the spell, a lattice shaped like a spider's web that flared brightly at the instant of the impact. The lightning dissipated harmlessly, leaving the man in the circle's centre rather startled but unharmed. 

"Attacking me is unwise," a voice reverberated in the heads of both mages, a yawning bass rumble mixed with the chatter of a machine. Bardal yelped and covered his ears to no avail. Neither mage left their battle stance, flames now welling up around Presto's hands.

"Wherever you escaped from, fiend, you won't be allowed to invade Legendra!" snapped the conjurer, pointing his stage magician's wand at the giant figure who rose from the floor as if not quite woken from sleep.

"Eh? But you two summoned me," the giant frowned. Standing to his full imposing height, he strode imperiously towards them, "Besides, I mean no hostility. There are things we can do for each other. This is Legendra, you say? On the mundane realm. It smells like physical matter."

"I w-won't help you!" stammered Presto, taking a step back while trying to position himself protectively in front of Bardal, "You tricked us into summoning you! You were lurking here all this time, waiting for someone to investigate..."

"I've only just arrived here," the giant yawned, "In fact, I was lost until now. I sense something that has been calling me. Something other than you two. You are not powerful enough to have summoned me on your own..."

"Well, thanks for that," grumbled Bardal, who was rather proud of his casting strength.

"... Was one of my brothers here?" he asked, his head slowly turning around, sniffing. He held out his wrist and several devices mounted onto his mechanical bracers beeped, whirred and flashed red lights, "Ramda? I sense Ramda... but only faintly... he's either very weak or very far away or both..."

"You are Madruk, aren't you?" Bardal hissed, "Fusing with that abominable machine or whatever you've done won't fool us!"

"Madruk? You cannot even tell us apart when I wear this form?" the giant shook his head, "And such hostility, such ignorant fear... you think all of us will be as insane as he has become, yes? Well, it is true that I do not particularly care whether you Legendran mortals thrive or die out," he shrugged, "And I'd crush like ants any that annoy me too much. It isn't really my priority, right now. Where's Ramda?"

"Sacrificed himself heroically so that you will not destroy our world," said Bardal, "And you cannot threaten us. Astea will..."

"Astea is not present," said the giant, "And whatever enchantment Harsgalt recently cast, it has dissipated. If it was aimed at my brothers, he probably does not expect me to be here. But he probably sensed I have arrived, so you may be right, that the Star Dragon is after me right now. I do not have forever. Even with this new source of power, taking on another Dragon God by myself would be folly, don't you think?"

"You're really not Madruk?" Bardal frowned, confused.

"You understand that Ramda is now Madruk, yes? I am... like Ramda," said the giant, "My name is Lokithus."

"We recognise that automaton fused to you," said Presto, "It is Katmando, is it not?"

"It is a Katmando, yes. Its true that my brother used one for his own private war, then..."

"There's more than one of those things?"

"I could show you many interesting things about this Universe, if you agree to cease these ridiculous attempts at hostilities," Lokithus yawned again, "You do seek understanding of the Universe, yes? I hear your background thoughts. They're racing with curiosity. You feel an urge to write down what is happening right now in a history book, to preserve its memory. Ramda was similarly fascinated by the idea of preserving information. It is forbidden for us to make a record of something we have been specifically mandated to remove from Legendra. Recording it changes the fact of whether it exists or not. A mortal has no such restriction upon them, though, even with divine inspiration - especially if they do not work for a deity functioning as a Destroyer God," he explained, "And also, there is nothing in our orders that speaks of information obtained outside Legendra. A surprising lack of any guidance at all."

"The intricacies of the Divine Bureaucracy are lost upon me, I'm afraid. You would be better off speaking to the Emperor-Mage," said Presto, "Although, His Highness will probably be none too pleased at your appearance in Legendra."

"Hm? I don't know what you... ah, yes. I understand the situation. I thought I sensed lesser divinity around here somewhere," Lokithus frowned, still appearing confused, "But the blood of Gods is not required to perform this task. Only a strong will and a receptiveness to inspiration."

"You want to recruit us as historians? Scribes?" Bardal answered with equal confusion, "I don't know what you want from us here. You say you're not a Destroyer God, except you also say you're like Madruk..."

"Let us say, I was a Destroyer God, but now such a thing does not exist in Legendra. There are not enough of us within reach of each other, with enough power to perform our function," he said.

"And you said you were looking for one of you. So if we help you, you'll be able to destroy Legendra? I fail to see the incentive for us," the bard crossed his arms.

"I think you're misunderstanding just how much of a problem it is going to cause that the cycle of creation and destruction on your home world is so off kilter right now," said Lokithus, "Madruk was damaged, yes, and it was probably fate that he was removed. But to not put anything in his place at all, working or otherwise..." he sighed and shook his head, "Also, I have told you what your reward will be if you aid me. I can show you things outside of Legendra, things that you will have access to first, and that you will have no restrictions upon recording whatsoever. And besides..."

He lowered his head slightly, his one eye fixing Bardal a menacing glare, his mechanical replacement pulsing red. Hatches opened up in his gauntlets and nozzles swiveled out that gave the unmistakable impression of weapons pointed at them, glowing red with some sort of charging lethal energy. Similar alcoves opened in his large metal shoulder pads and a cluster of spheres rose out, floating around his head, glowing similar angry crimson. They reminded Bardal of Queen Teiris' magical orbs, except mechanical and demonic.

He swept up his other arm and the portal hummed to life again, a pillar of blue energy rising up from its runes. Slowly but inexorably, a Katmando robot rose from the portal. He jumped onto its domed, energy-veined glass head and lounged there with his arm draped over one knee, regarding them as though they were inconsequential, easily fixed problems.

"I never said I could not destroy you, and the world you stand upon. It is not my mission at the moment but my situation and my knowledge have released me from certain restrictions - acted as a loophole, as it were. Fortunately for you, I do not care if I destroy this world or not, but I would rather appreciate help, so it may be in your interests to co-operate, no?"


	4. A Path of Radiance

"You do realise there are stirrings from the Pantheon of Destruction right now, don't you?"

"They will be defeated as they were before," the Emperor-Mage waved away the voice reverberating through his mind with as much concern as he would the hawk, an emissary of the deity he spoke with, if it were a normal bird who had somehow gotten into his throne room, "My armies do not rest, even in apparent peace. I have an entire continent to protect now."

"Much as I am also loathe to see it as such, this is not a situation you can resolve by throwing enough of the right type of military force at it," said the voice, "I do not mean that Madruk is returning. I mean that the balance is restoring itself, like a scab growing over a wound so it can heal, whether we like it or not, however it affects us. I warn you specifically because you are an as yet unallocated Godling. You will be a prime target for... recruitment." 

"Are you suggesting that I will become a Destroyer God?"

"I'm saying that its a possibility," replied the voice in his mind. The hawk hopped from one foot to the other on its perch, preening itself, "You cannot deny that you have destructive urges. Most people do - it would be the sign of a more twisted soul if you had none at all. However, most people are not in the running to become a deity at a time when certain positions happen to be open."

"And if I don't wish this?"

"You will have to show more force of will than mere dislike. You won't be asked politely. True, you can't be forced either - an unwilling deity would cause as many problems as it solves. However, all your destructive urges will be used against you. All your secret bloodthirsty desires, your grudges, your ambitions of conquest... including all the times you try and lie to yourself about being a better person than you are."

"In other words, absolutely everything I do."

"I would not say so, as someone who observes most of what you do - and yes, I have that right as a father of a son who is, by the standards of the divine race he's born into, very young. I would say that you have many parts of yourself that are nothing to do with destruction. You have a wry sense of humour, a way with words; an academic curiosity, an ambition to do well in life for the sake of it, that is nothing to do with crushing others; a strong loyalty to people who return it and, I may add, certain people very fond of you who are growing closer every day..."

"My, we're being a lot nicer than usual. I wonder what it is that we want in exchange," the boy-Emperor drummed his fingers on the arm of his throne, "And I'd ask that you keep your prying eyes out of my love life."

"Oh, but I worry about you. Well, actually, I worry more about what would happen if certain mortals - or Immortals of certain tribes - were to seduce an innocent young deity and get something out of them that it would be a bad idea for them to have."

"I'm an innocent now?"

"Compared to a fully grown deity, yes, very. And, in answer to 'what I want from you'... I'd quite like you to follow in my footsteps."

"Oh, so God of Destruction bad, God of War good?" 

"Trustworthy God of War trained by the best in the business, yes, very good. Especially if another actual war breaks out and Legendra needs someone to defend it again."

"Expecting another war, are we?" the boy's eyes widened. The hawk keened. 

"Like I said, something is stirring."

"This argument is becoming circular, father," the boy yawned.

"And what is war but a breakdown of communications? This is my point, boy, things aren't making sense. They're out of balance. It might take something breaking and being removed before it can all fit into place again - and the Universe WILL find its balance. The alternative is much worse."

"I appreciate the warning, father - I've been sensing a few things wrong myself and I have people dealing with them - but I'm not going to let you or anyone else intimidate me into deciding on something as big as that until I'm ready. And no, I'm not keeping you up to date on my love life."

"Then you admit that you have one."

"It is none of your business!" he snapped.

"Its just that, if there isn't anyone, you have a few potential suitors among some of the pantheons that produce some of the..."

It was around the time that Reinhart was trying to think up the most venomously appropriate response to his father's attempt at matchmaking that he heard a loud explosion that rocked the very earth beneath him. A shadow was passing over the sun.

"I think you have work to do," said Valhart, "And so do I."

* * *

_  
_

You summoned a Grand Golem/  
Now its taken you over/  
Don't you know you should never call up/  
What you can't put away, now, really,/

Don't tell me it's time to talk...

__

__

"No, no, the atmosphere's still all wrong!" complained Presto, "The acoustics are fine but something's just not intense enough. I want to see real pathos!"

"Maybe it's the lighting?" mused Bardal, plucking his lute strings experimentally. Sparks of magic flew off them, vibrant emerald and magenta to match his lush hair, perfectly teased into something deliberately projecting an air of elegant disarray, and his silk cloak that blew in an invisible wind. All of this was a fairly minor enchantment that did little except make him look more impressive but it did that job perfectly, crafted, as it was, precisely and masterfully for the task. The notes that flew out of his glowing lute were amplified, the clear but powerful sound streaming across the chamber. While it was still empty apart from the two mages and Lokithus, the giant frame of the Destroyer God was large enough to fill up a row of seats on his own if he sprawled out a little rather than hunching up in a ball in the air, his pose that of a classical philosopher pondering the Universe, trailing the spiritual energy that leaked from metaphysical realms just from the weight of his existence in the mundane world. Even without a literal Titan in the audience, the sheer atmosphere of the performance was enough to fill the entire chamber with something indefinable but definitely there.

Except it wasn't quite enough.

"Lighting looks fine to me," rumbled Lokithus, idly flicking away a will-o-wisp that drew too close to his face. Presto directed the arcane globes of light with grand sweeping gestures of his arms. Where Bardal was dressed as flamboyantly as possible, complete with painted face and nails, Presto opted for a perfectly pressed, smart black stage magician's outfit, top hat always precisely balanced on his head, cane never leaving his hand. The device that Lokithus played with on his wrist was sending out lights of its own, along with invisible fields of energy that were definitely reinforcing the magic somehow, although neither mage really understood the mechanics behind it.

It still wasn't enough.

Bardal took a sip of the potion at his side, a mixture of mostly mana rejuvenation but also some strong stimulants and a few rarer psychoactive herbs. As they came from his mind in the first place, the colours tended to become more vivid, the patterns more complex in his enchantments as well. 

He opened his mouth to sing again.

Don't tell me its time to talk  
You always say that when you're losing  
And the only words that you ever heard  
Were 'no retreat, no surrender', yeah...

He stopped and sighed. It was still all wrong, somehow. Enough for a normal concert, yes, but not for rending the veil between worlds to be led by a cyber-Titan into a land that was beyond the scope of even the knowledge of the Gods.

It needed something EXTRA.

"Maybe we need a different song?" suggested Presto, "I mean, we love this one, we practice it to hell and back, we always default to this one, the lyrics are powerful but they're not the best we can do. I don't think they really say 'apocalyptic revelation'."

"Maybe that Fandarian ballad? It always makes the crowd go silent," mused Bardal.

"Its heavy enough but its too slow. It can be kinda a downer." 

"I picked up some songs from other worlds that sound very different to anything we have here," said Lokithus, "But my singing voice rather resembles a dying frog, and the upgrades to my vocal chords made by the augmentations... did not help. Now I sound like a louder dying frog," he sighed, "Gods are not perfect beings in all aspects. That is why there are multiple of us."

"I don't suppose you wrote them down?" asked Presto.

"I don't know how sheet music works, and there wasn't any around in the middle of the spaceship battle I was in at the time," said Lokithus, "I should have recorded it. I keep forgetting these devices can do that. You don't need a pen or anything, it just goes in these telepathic data crystals, but you have to actually tell them to..."

"What is a 'space ship'?" 

Just then, Bardal snapped his fingers, accidentally unleashing a flurry of arcane fireworks that screamed, fizzled and made loud bangs in the air. 

"I've got it," he said, "Remember the desert battle song?"

"I know the one you mean, and yes, its certainly dramatic enough, but... we didn't hear it very often. And we always seemed to be getting attacked by dragons at the time. Can we really get it right?"

"Its not about perfectly replicating the tune. We're not trying to reenact the situation, we're using the energy of the song as a channel for something completely different," Bardal reminded him, "In other words, it just has to be the same atmosphere. Do you think you can capture the same amount of power, Bardal? The bleakness of the desert, the dark mountains in the background, the swarm of dragons pouring out of the caves like Hell itself spilling over? How much magic was channeled on those days, so that the sky itself was on fire?"

"Yes, I remember," Presto sighed, "We were getting to the end by then. We'd lost so much. We were exhausted but also elated by the sheer atmosphere. I don't think anything slept in Legendra that night, even the dead..."

"And can you put it into a performance?"

"Always," said Presto, twirling around and bowing, making the lights flurry and swirl around him like flaming butterflies.

Presto played the first few notes.

* * *

_Stood on the shoulders of giants  
Sands stained red, skies burning,  
Dragons soar, nations fall_

_And become_

_Offline! Offline!  
Offline! Offline!_

_Here is where ev'rything ends now  
At the brink of nightfall  
Falls the rain, falls the fire  
Falls below critical_

_And becomes_

_Offline! Offline!_  
Offline! Offline!  
Offline! Offline! 

_Offlline, Liberty's prime, I walk a path of radiance for you  
Only for you, Legendra, for you!_

* * *

Before they could get to the second verse, the ground rumbled so suddenly, so hard and fast that they were all knocked off their feet, the equipment for the concert and the summoning circle alike thrown flying. The circle itself glowed a blinding blue, then surged upwards in a roaring, coursing tirade of magical energy that coalesced into a pillar of light. Exploding through the ceiling, it engulfed the mages, swallowed them. 

When the light dissipated, Bardal and Presto could no longer be found on any map of Legendra. In fact, none but the most powerful scrying magic could have a hope of finding out where they had gone, and then there would be no way to follow them without any reference point existing in the worlds mundane or divine, whatsoever, except maybe some of Harsgalt’s private libraries.

This was causing a lot of problems for Sophie, who had been assigned by Reinhart to track the two of them down, as they’d been the last two who were supposed to be in the tower when it disappeared entirely. Provided they’d actually even been where they were supposed to be, the performers were the most likely to cause a trouble of that magnitude. Of course, there had been a fairly large initial problem – a sleeping magical signature of unknown nature – that was also very likely to be responsible. Maybe putting the two sources of trouble hadn’t been the best idea but they were the most powerful mages in Legendra who were free to go on field missions, and while not particularly loyal to Tradnor, they never acted against the interests of Legendra as a whole.

Meanwhile, Teiris had Manoa on the same job. Incidentally, Cinna was scrying for Junon, Katt for Gongos, while Goldark had hired Marina and Milishea to look into it for him. While none of them explicitly mistrusted the other nations or their overall ruler – such lack of co-operation had led to them losing the initial battle against Madruk – it never did to be completely open after you had only just made peace after a bloody civil war from which not all old hurts had completely healed. Besides, they were helping out, in their own way – several pairs of eyes were better than only one.

The Kingdom of the Immortals, a nation that hadn’t really become fully acknowledged yet but that Reinhart didn’t disapprove of, had sent off Santana to see what was happening. They were probably the most discreet of all, as quite a few people in Legendra were still rather jumpy about matters concerning the race of vampires who had once fought on the side of Madruk. 

This was ironic, as King Vlad had even more reason than most to make sure Madruk was definitely not reappearing.


	5. The Void

They fell for a long time.

Through a black void they fell, total darkness, as though they had been swallowed up by a vast bottomless pit and had long since lost their light source, had been plummeting for too long to remember what it was like not to fall, to remember which way was up or down, or cling to any sense of time.

It was all around them, all-encompassing, all-devouring, infinite. Its scale was so unimaginably enormous that the individual consciousnesses known as Bardal and Presto were too miniscule to be found. They could be extinguished by a thought, a moment, with no record of their existence.

The panic that set in was not just mortal. It was a magnitude beyond that. This was a wilderness in which their very souls might not have shelter.

"Do not panic," said a familiar voice, once again echoing through their minds, "Do not lose your way."

Bardal had been trying to comfort himself by humming a song, any song, even the eerie ones that came to mind as he drifted in nothingness. It was proof that something existed. If he could think about it, it proved that he still existed, in some form at least. He could hear, too, even if it felt more like hearing things in a dream, things that came from within his own mind and expanded outwards rather than the usual way round. He must at least have some senses. Come to think of it, he felt cold, too. This was a darkness that was there, not just an absence of anything. He could feel it, thick and oppressive as a black fog, except that he could see through it perfectly well. There were lights within it, he then realised, myriads of tiny points of lights that winked in and out, moved in some kind of arc and made him think of more songs. 

"That's right, here is not empty. Here is everything," said the voice. Bardal was able to follow it, this time, and see where it was coming from. Lokithus was there, just ahead of him, wreathed in a flaming crimson aura. The hard shining black of his armoured carapace, not unlike a mechanical beetle, stood out as a silhouette in the flames. A red light winked on and off in the glass panel where his eye had been, a tiny model of the things that wheeled around them like stars across the night sky.

"They are stars, of a kind. Worlds like ours, too far away to reach," said Lokithus, "Ours is here, too, and everything in it. It's all still recorded. Think of it like... you're a word on a page in a book, and suddenly that page falls out and off the shelf, and now you're aware of what the library looks like. And I'm slightly more words on that page," admitted Lokithus, "Maybe highlighted, maybe even underlined but I still felt that same experience the first time I saw the library. I thought I had fallen out of space and time entirely, thought I was lost forever. I wasn't, though. I wasn't even all that far away from home."

It occurred to Bardal to look around for Presto, to check he was okay. He'd been standing next to the other mage when the light swallowed them all. If he'd managed to fall in the same direction as Lokithus, he couldn't be far away from Presto. As he concentrated on the flamboyant magician, as the mental image of Presto became clearer and more detailed, it was like focusing in on a meaningful object after waking up in an unfamiliar room. Had Presto always been there, wondered Bardal, or had he found his partner by thinking about him? That was how dreams usually worked and this felt like a dream. Or like a teleportation spell gone wrong, in which case he was lucky the other two were still anywhere near him and that the three of them were still alive.

At least, he assumed he was lucky that Lokithus was there. He would certainly be lost without the Titan. Or had that been the plan all along, to lure them into this nightmare? Was this some precursor to reviving the true Madruk and taking over the world? He couldn't think exactly how you would take over the world by heading as far as possible away from it after kidnapping two performers who had medium to high level magic powers, but then he was no expert in destroying worlds compared to some kind of mechanical giant whose actual job it used to be to...

"Your thoughts are very, very loud, you know."

He blushed, or at least had the idea of heating up in an area that was probably his face, on a body of his that probably really existed.

"Can you hear everything I'm thinking?"

"Only when it is very loud and about me."

"Why can't I hear what either you are thinking?"

"I am not thinking loudly, or about anything of interest to you, and besides, you are not listening."

"Can Presto hear me too?"

"As a matter of fact I've been trying to contact you for ages," the other mage's voice came into his head, "And who are you calling medium to high level?"

Once they were used to existing in this new state, Lokithus taught them to manoeuvre well enough to at least go in the straight line necessary to get where they were supposed to be going.

“It is mostly about envisaging your intent and a route to it that makes sense in your own internal logic,” said the Titan, “It is not all that different to mortal magic, except that there is an enormous power source and it can – and must - be used for everything.”

“Is this how divine magic feels?” asked Bardal.

“In a way. Again, the only real difference is scale. A divine being can hold more of this and comprehend how to use it. Honestly, though, I have always believed that we could learn and master even more. Either that, or Harsgalt already knows more and has some other reason not to share it.”

“It sounds like the heated arguments we have with Reinhart, does it not?” Presto teased Bardal.

“Reinhart is the Godling, yes? It sounds like his interest in mortal politics is good training for the day he takes a divine position of his own,” opined Lokithus, “I do not imagine he will be allowed to continue leading a mortal Empire when he becomes a God, though. Such bias would become a problem if there were a conflict of interest.”

“I believe Sophie takes over if something happens to him,” said Presto, “But, of course, I would never wish for such a thing to happen. And I did not discuss this with anyone I do not hold in the strictest confidence.”

“I could not care less about Legendran mundane politics,” Lokithus reminded them, “I am simply making conversation to encourage you to continuously remember who you are. Our physical shells are not here. They would be destroyed by the cold, pressure and lack of air. We have no containers for our essences except the ones we make. We need at least something in order to exist – an idea of who we are, an organised pattern, a way to tell ourselves apart from everything else in the void.”

“Gods as well as mortals?”

“We tend to be a little more… flexible. For instance, we split ourselves into three separate parts, and it is fairly effortless for myself to make a temporary thought-body like this. An even more powerful deity than me might even be able to manage even more flexibility but I doubt any of us could survive without any individual form at all.”

"Do you miss your brothers?" asked Bardal. The Titan frowned and averted his gaze, staring downwards. 

"It is like a phantom limb," he said, his tone genuinely forlorn, rather than the usual impartial, aloof sense of power, "Except that at least I can know a severed limb is actually gone... no, this is not something I wish to talk about with those I am not... close to," he snapped. Bardal wanted to ask, who it was that a Destroyer God considered close, except for the other aspects of himself who he named 'brothers', but he wasn't sure if this was pushing the limits of the Titan's hospitality and temper. In fact, he only just realised in time that he was probably telepathically 'shouting' again - his thoughts were certainly clamoring in his skull as he was opened up to the newly imagined possibility of an entity such as Madruk feeling close to someone, missing someone, maybe even needing someone. A Titan having a genuine vulnerability that a mortal could relate to. Realising what he was potentially about to do, he slammed down the shutters on his own thoughts, hiding behind a veil of icy neutrality.

Something, he suspected, Lokithus was also busy doing for himself. The Titan had gone very quiet as they drifted along, concentrating on the idea of self, of purpose and direction and travel, while the length of time passed that the laws of the Universe considered the journey to take. It was tiring, even though they felt as though they were channeling an immense source of energy all around them. They still had to concentrate on it, divert its flow, as well as constantly fight not to drown in it. Maybe, he pondered, Lokithus was just genuinely needing to concentrate as well. He'd been going longer than them, had been traveling the void for a while in order to find them, to find Legendra again. And he'd been doing so with some sorrow in his heart that Bardal wasn't sure he could understand, although he suspected it was similar to that initial flare of panic when he suddenly realised he couldn't tell whether Presto existed or not. 

He once again centred his thoughts and slammed up a shield.

"We are almost there," reported Lokithus, "I can hear them calling me back."

"I hear nothing," admitted Bardal.

"That is because you are listening out for a certain thing you expect to hear, most probably an entity more similar to yourself."

Before he could ask for clarification, the scene seemed to change. It wasn't overt - they were still, in appearance, hanging in a cold, black void. However, the difference in how it felt hit Bardal like coming in from the cold. This place was not the void, but another distinct world that happened to also be dark. A book with black pages and, presumably, somewhere, white ink. 

Lokithus stretched out his massive arm. The sensors on his wrist beeped, a red light flashing. A multitude of lights flashed in the darkness, like a swarm of nocturnal creatures opening their eyes. They made thousands of tiny chittering, beeping noises, then whirred as they flew into motion, clustering around Lokithus' arm.

The travelers had found their 'white ink'.

Or, at least, the footnotes. 

Looking up, Bardal realised that the main body of the text was much, much larger.


	6. Golden Dragon

There were several full sized Katmando robots, mostly identical in appearance to the one that had landed on Legendra, except that they were pristine, free of atmosphere burn marks, impact craters and battle scars from already attacking the first thing they saw. They floated in blue columns of light, their visors blinking lazily in response to status queries rather the broad, avian glare of their combat mode. They had been kept in stasis for a long time, doing nothing except being maintained in perfect readiness to go to war at a moment's notice. Like the one that had become the Apostle of Madruk, these machines left no illusion that there made for anything except battle. Their round carapaces were heavily armoured and wrapped in electrified force fields, their small, horned heads bristling with guiding antennae for the clusters of lasers that protruded from alcoves in their body, including two large, ball-jointed, rod-like metal arms ending in clusters of rotating spikes and laser cannons. A lot of this was tucked away as they slumbered but Bardal and Presto remembered all too well what they'd seen from the other side of Central Legendra, the machine being the size of the castle they were standing on the ramparts of. 

There hadn't been at least fifty of them, though, suspended above the two mages in neat rows. What was more, there were other things here. A lot of them were even larger, or failing that, smaller but in larger quantities, floating in formations that looked like they worked together perfectly efficiently as a lethal force. Bardal understood that these would support the Katmando as an escort, with the beetle-things now attending to Lokithus as even smaller maintenance drones that could fit into narrow spaces in the larger machines and clean them. The largest of the machines, shaped more like buildings except curved and tapered at one end, or perhaps some kind of enormous, flying tropical fish, opened up to admit the smaller machines, to transport them in bulk, like a caravan of troops. From what Bardal knew about tactics - admittedly more of it from overly dramatised historical plays than actually turning up to command briefings and paying attention to them - this was an invasion fleet designed to travel a long distance, maybe to conquer an entire world like Legendra.

"I'm impressed that you already understand the nature of this army," said Lokithus, "And I assure you that invading Legendra with them is not my intention. In fact, I could not do such a thing. For one, I am not in absolute command of them yet. I can only activate a few at once and I meet... resistance. See that tower?" he pointed to a long, thin rotating object not unlike a loom's spindle, except that it was impossibly tall and covered in panels, lights and sensors, all of them chirping, warbling and streaming with text in an unfamiliar language, "That's the Command Tower. It isn't even Central Command - this is only one division of the fleet. The language they speak doesn't translate into anything our minds recognise as words. That's why I had to change so much of myself into machine parts, to become one of them, to exist in the realm through which they communicate."

"It kind of sounds like you're trying to activate these things and invade Legendra with them," said Presto.

"I am not sure what you would do if I was," Lokithus reminded him, "But I have no such plan. At first, if anything, I was curious as to what I had found. It was something far outside the order of Legendra, maybe something Harsgalt didn't even know about. There was even the possibility that it was a threat to me. Later, when I returned here after the... incident... with Madruk and Ramda... I had been dealt a great blow to my essence and I realised that I could replace my missing substance with machine parts and keep myself alive indefinitely. Only after that did I realise I had put myself in a position where I could communicate with the others, not just with one isolated Katmando, and would begin to control them, one squadron at a time. Sometimes I had to fight off the Command Tower's security systems."

"And you plan when you have this fleet under your control?"

"A target much larger than one project that would have been abandoned as a failure long ago, if it was not Astea's pet project," Lokithus tossed his hair back, a sudden glint of mad ambition in his eye, "I will finally be on an even keel with Harsgalt. I will battle the Gods themselves." 

"There is one slight problem with that, Dispossessed One," boomed another voice, even louder and clearer and more imperious than that of the Titan, crackling with forces of primal energy that felt even more dangerous to be in the presence of. Bardal had briefly felt this presence before, back when whatever quest the Dragon Force Warriors had undergone in the three shrines was complete and they emerged with legendary weapons thought lost, Reinhart himself wreathed in a brilliant golden flame as intense, pure and destructive as the sun's rays themselves.

Harsgalt, the Dragon of the Stars, foremost of the Gods of Legendra, had entered the realm. Bardal turned his head and saw the portal open with a peal of lightning that tore the space around it apart. A claw reached through, then another, then an enormous golden-scaled snout and a flash of angrily bared, razor-sharp teeth the size of Bardal's head.

Presto looked equally shocked into silence. Only Lokithus looked unimpressed. Indifferent to their surroundings, their Command Tower watching everything for any sign of further tampering but unwilling to interrupt the fleet's sleep otherwise, the machines continued to drift.

Harsgalt swept majestically through the portal, followed by a seemingly endless flight of golden dragons. Their claws were bared, their nostrils flaring with anticipation of combat, their lightning breath already playing around their snarling muzzles.

"Managed to track me down, did you?" Lokithus sighed, "Were they your dogs all along? Shame on you, bards, I thought you at least had the mark of spiritual freedom on you..."

"I did not need a spy," corrected Harsgalt, "Your path was noisy. You should never have returned to Legendra. Or aren't you powerful enough to maintain yourself without a connection to your assigned world, despite pretending to be so independent from it? How did you ever plan to fight us when you can barely keep yourself alive? With these toys?" the Dragon God made a sweeping gesture with one sharp talon, "You've only woken up a fraction of them. I was more intimidated by Madruk than you - and he was losing his mind!"

"Mock my brothers all you like but this fleet will wake up," said Lokithus, "It is true that I am not in control of it but this fact won't save you when it all starts moving. This was a galactic empire beyond the scope of anything we ever managed. They do not care about our petty squabbles..."

"Why did they shut themselves off like this, then?" asked Bardal.

"Be quiet, mortal, this discussion is none of your concern," snapped Harsgalt, "It is unthinkably dangerous for you to be here, if you value your continued existence - whatever possessed you to agree to help this obvious, unrepentant fragment of Madruk's essence?"

"Curiosity," admitted the bard.

Harsgalt's answer was a crack of thunder that sounded like it was tearing the realm apart, "Enough! I don't even understand how you managed to survive what you've done. This place is about to fall into chaos, maybe a war beyond the scale of anything that would even fit inside Legendra. You aren't going to survive any longer." 

"Are you sure you feel safe just letting those mortals go? They've seen everything. They have so much information that shouldn't be available to a mortal of Legendra. They fall a long way outside of your careful, tidy system by now," Lokithus mocked the dragon.

"Do not tempt me. It would be as trivial for me to slay your pet bards as swatting a fly."

"I'm nobody's pet except maybe Presto's," protested Bardal.

"Or maybe this is all a feint," continued Lokithus, folding his arms and resting his head on one shoulder, "And maybe this thing is programmed to wake up if it detects violence. Maybe nobody has actually opened fire on anyone here yet and you'll be the first, making you the target of every security system here. I'd probably get hit too," admitted Lokithus, "But maybe I don't really care. I've already lost two-thirds of myself."

"You never struck me as one motivated by revenge, Lokithus. Madruk, yes, but not you. I had expected you to retreat into space altogether, to take this time to escape my system and explore as you felt like it."

"Maybe I wouldn't get far," Lokithus sighed, "Maybe I'm running out of essence and this long exile in the void has already done bad things to my mind."

"You were never particularly sane, any of you," said Harsgalt, "And I see no difference right now between the old Lokithus and the maniac standing in front of me. Brothers or no brothers..."

"And he is entirely missing the point," commented another voice. Bardal spun around, startled - this voice sounded a lot closer and yet he'd not sensed anyone else in the realm. He saw nobody, and was surprised to realise that only Presto had also turned around. Lokithus and Harsgalt were now looking at them oddly, as though they'd just jumped at absolutely nothing.

Only they had heard. In the midst of Titans, Gods and ancient interstellar war machines, this was a message for them alone, the two mage-bards who had no idea what they were doing.


	7. A Grand Golem

Unlike the two voices that boomed across the world at each other, increasingly full of righteous indignation and infernal wrath respectively, this voice was soft, its aura a pale blue, "Ramda is still in existence, as am I. We have no body to interact with you, as such..."

"I thought you three couldn't survive without a body."

"This is the absolute simplest essence. It is taking everything I have to speak with you right now, from such a distance, amidst all this chaos. I can only do so because Ramda has a brother here, except we have to hide from him right now. I am not sure how much I can trust him," said the voice, "It is fortunate our signature is made so small by this miniscule existence."

"You... are you...?" Presto frowned.

"I do not think we have met but you have definitely heard of me, from Ramda. I am Frest," explained the voice, "I have been following you from the Tower, out of Legendra. I want to thank you for finding one of Ramda's brothers for him. They all miss each other equally."

"Wait, you mean, Madruk is...?"

"We cannot find Madruk. If anything of him still exists after that battle, it is too faint, either too small or too far away. Ramda says he is not sure if that is a good thing or not," said Frest, "In any case, you need to leave here now. He can't come in person - Lokithus would detect him instantly - but our bond is strong enough to share a common pool of energy. I must stop talking now, if I am to use the rest to teleport you safely out of there. What I am about to do now... will rival even how we found each other again, back then."

"But how..." began Bardal.

"I know you must have endless questions. I'm sorry I can't answer them for you. What's happening here is important for you to remember but it is far beyond the scale you can interact with right now. You need to go back and warn everyone. Even that is technically forbidden, but... let us say, a lot of rules have been broken. Now, I need you to think about each other, come close to each other so that you have enough combined energy, then I need you to think about home - about Legendra."

* * *

_  
Don't tell me its time to talk  
You used to tell me I talked too much  
And the only words you ever heard  
Were no retreat, no surrender..._

_No retreat and no surrender  
We'll keep fighting for Legendra  
Even if we are the sole defenders of our home  
In this world  
In this world..._

* * *

Humming the favourite song that represented everything he loved about Legendra, as personal to him as a true name in some ancient royal enchantment binding him to the land, Bardal thought about home. He thought about Presto, the one person he feared losing the most. 

He imagined holding the other man's hand. Even he was surprised at how vividly he could envisage this act. He remembered the rough feel of Presto's hands, larger and broader than his own but still not exactly a Beastman warrior - Bardal had Elven heritage somewhere along the line and was one of the more delicate-featured human men he knew. He remembered Presto's warmth, his smell, usually of residual magic and expensive perfume and perfectly pressed suits, the feeling Bardal had whenever the other man was close.

He wondered what Presto was thinking right now, whether he was visualising the same things about Bardal, whether Bardal even meant the same to Presto as the performer did to him. He wondered if it actually mattered, for both of them to get home safely.

Then Bardal felt that Presto was fully beside him, as distinctly as if they really were back in the tower together. The two mages began a duet in perfect unison, Presto's voice deeper but just as rich, a harmony to Bardal's melody. 

As they did on the last night of a grand concert, they poured every tiny fragment of their magic into the spell-song. Arcane energy flared up around them, vibrant blue like the sky of a new day after the night they had been drifting through for what seemed like aeons. Inside this curtain of blue fire which roared with power, they saw two other shapes apart from themselves. Another couple, hands joined. They nodded to acknowledge each other, then the bards began to fade away as the brother of Madruk and the ancient Apostle of Astea walked in the other direction, back towards the flames of gold and crimson and the mechanical stars hanging in the sky.

* * *

"Brother?" Lokithus asked, bemused.

"Lokithus. Let's walk away from all this. We don't need to keep on doing it. We should appreciate our freedom, not return to the things that tied us down."

"We'll never be able to bring back Madruk..."

"Madruk can take care of himself. He was the stronger of us, remember?"

"But Harsgalt..."

"Madruk picked the fight with Harsgalt, let him get out of this one by himself. For all we know, he has a plan. Come, brother, it is time for us to go. There's so many more interesting things to find in this Universe than this cold, lonely place."

"I'm not lonely. These machines... I'm part of their system now. Ramda, they're waking up, whether we like it or not, and... this may be my fault... they've already noticed Legendra. Even if Harsgalt uses them for himself, or worse, gives them to Valhart as a gift - something I cannot allow - they have their own commander. Once they revive, they are likely to head for the only place they know."

"I thought you didn't care about Legendra."

"I don't, but you do," said Lokithus, "And I care about both my brothers, who are going to be involved with this mess."

"Let me come with you, then, and let's go to the source of all this. That's not the overall Central Command, is it? We'll follow this signal and find it. Harsgalt may follow us but at least we'll be away from Legendra and any collateral damage."

"A strange thing for a fragment of a Destroyer God to worry about."

"I've changed a lot more than you have, Lokithus. I think its because I haven't been alone."

"I haven't either. I told you."

"Then go and find the one for you," said Ramda, "I'm being serious. If you think you can just watch from afar and try to manipulate your way closer, you're really bad at this."

"Then I welcome your advice, brother."

"You lead the way, I don't know where your... machine... thing is."

"Fine," Lokithus sighed, then, to Harsgalt, declared, "I will retreat for now. Other business has cropped up."

"Begone from Legendra and you will not be pursued," the Dragon God replied, "I, too, have... other priorities."

Two portals opened, then both the flight of dragons and the one drone swarm and couple of Katmandos under Lokithus' control disappeared from view, leaving the standing fleet silent once more.

* * *

Bardal and Presto returned to the chamber of the tower that was the same as it ever was, except that more of the roof had fallen in and the remains of a chalk circle was now messily smeared over the floor, along with trails of fallen candle wax and a book left where it was thrown, open with the spine downwards. 

It was surrounded by armies from Tradnor, Fandaria, Tristan and Palemoon, as well as the Immortals, now overtly returned as a nation. Bozack had apparently gotten distracted by something.

Fortunately, no actual war had been declared, they were only viewing each other with mutual suspicion while glaring with growing paranoia and fear at the tower. When nothing came out except two exhausted-looking mercenary wizards, hand in hand, singing an uplifting anthem, the whole thing was quickly explained without any further international incident. 

However, the threat hadn't entirely lifted. Bardal was the first to report the potential danger to Legendra posed by the Katmando fleet so close to them, to the conflict between Harsgalt and Lokithus and the possibility that Madruk was not entirely gone. Added to which, the threat that the Gods who were supposed to protect Legendra might not be sympathetic any more, not now that mortals knew more than they were supposed to about the Universe.

"Well, I believe they were supposed to leave us be anyway," said Reinhart, "Allow their children to grow up, I seem to recall was what they promised."

"In my experience, parents often regret saying that when their children immediately run off and make the worst possible decisions," said Goldark.

"Is that what you think we're doing?" asked Teiris, looking genuinely worried.

"Only if we persist in trying to start another pointless war when we should be co-operating to defend our nation," declared Reinhart, "And don't give me any nonsense about wanting to prove you're the stronger and more able to protect everyone. The threat is now and we don't have the resources spare. Besides which, you've already tried it on and you all lost."

"When there's real peace," said Junon, "You should watch your back, little boy. Because there won't be. Not for long."

"Actually, I'm thinking of not being a little boy any more," said Reinhart, "I was going to announce it sooner but I think I've decided on my grown-up appearance."

"Now this is interesting. Did you ask Uryll for input like I threatened you with death if you didn't?" 

"Yes, I have checked, this is definitely a form that will meet with approval by my future bride," said Reinhart, "Very near future, I may add. If we're going to enter some kind of second age of strife, its high time I got the important things over and done with."

"You're right. And I have important things of my own to be getting on with," declared Goldark, "So if you'll excuse me... stop hiring so many mercenaries, don't summon anything else and don't blow anything up. I don't want to have to leave Fandaria again, do you hear me?"

"Is there something I'm failing to communicate about me being the Emperor here?" Reinhart sighed, "Oh, okay, do what you like, as long as you co-operate when it counts and don't try to overthrow me - I'm always watching. Also, you're invited to our wedding too."

“Really?” Goldark looked rather taken aback by this news. It was the last thing he’d ever expected to hear. He wasn’t sure if he even owned a formal suit, or anything other than intimidating spiked armour and furs, hardly suitable for a wedding.

He’d have to ask Kharhaz.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * A [Restricted Work] by [noxelementalist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxelementalist/pseuds/noxelementalist) Log in to view. 




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